LINCOLN v. COBB.

67

have risen, why should any be hindered from rising? Why should even the poorest black man remain fixed for life in the condition of a hired labourer? still less remain a slave, unable even to own his own body? The Confederate General T. R. R. Cobb, of Georgia, had written that there was "perhaps no solution of the great age. I belonged, you know, to what they call down South the Scrubs; people who do not own slaves are nobody there. But we had succeeded in raising, chiefly by my labour, sufficient produce, as I thought, to justify me in taking it down the river to sell. After much persuasion I got the consent of mother to go, and constructed a little flat-boat, large enough to take a barrel or two of things that we had gathered, with myself and little bundle, down to New Orleans. A steamer was coming down the river. We have, you know, no wharves on the Western streams; and the custom was, if passengers were at any of the landings, for them to go out in a boat, the steamer stopping and taking them on board.

"I was contemplating my new flat-boat, and wondering whether I could make it stronger or improve it in any particular, when two men came down to the shore in carriages with trunks, and looking at the different boats, singled out mine, and asked, 'Who owns this?' I answered, somewhat modestly, 'I do.' 'Will you,' said

68

PROGRESS OF THE FEDERAL ARMS.

problem of reconciling the interests of labour

and capital so simple and effective as negro slavery. By making the labourer himself capital, the conflict ceases, and the interests become identical." What a gulf between the two doctrines !

The early part of the year 1862 saw considerable progress on the part of the Federals, one of them, 'take us and our trunks to the steamer? ́ 'Certainly,' said I. I was very glad to have the chance of earning something. I supposed that each of them. would give me two or three bits. The trunks were put on my flat-boat, the passengers seated themselves on the trunks, and I sculled them out to the steamboat. They got on board, and I lifted up their heavy trunks, and

put them on deck.

The steamer was about to put on steam again, when I called out that they had forgotten to pay me. Each of them took from his pocket a silver half dollar, and threw it on the floor of my boat. I could scarcely believe my eyes as I picked up the money. Gentlemen, you may think it a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me a trifle; but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day, -that by honest work I had earned a dollar. The world seemed wider and fairer before me. I was a more hopeful and confident being from that time."

THE FEDERALS IN TENNESSEE.

69

everywhere except in Virginia, where "Stonewall" Jackson was beginning to win for himself a brilliant reputation by the rapidity and boldness of his operations, generally upon the Federal lines of communication. Kentucky was cleared from all organised military resistance, except at the South-West corner. The Federal gunboats, pushing through Kentucky up the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, into the State of Tennessee, took Fort Henry (February 6), and with the aid of the land forces under General Grant, Fort Donelson (February 16), the latter giving no fewer than 13,300 prisoners (making, with killed and wounded, a total Confederate loss of 15,067), 3,000 horses, 48 fieldpieces, 17 heavy guns, and 20,000 stand of arms, a check to the Confederates, in a material point of view, far worse than that of Bull Run to the Federals, whose total loss on that occasion was 2,708 (of whom some 1,200 prisoners), and 28 cannon, with some thousand muskets. Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, was occupied (February 23), never again to be

70

MR. LINCOLN'S MESSAGE

lost hold of. Senator Andrew Johnson was named military governor of the State. Three Union gunboats ascended the Tennessee as far as Florence, Alabama, and were well received. A further portion of the coast of North Carolina was occupied by an expedition under General Burnside, and a lodgment effected on the coast of Georgia, at Brunswick (March 2); lastly, the Federal troops, having nearly cleared Missouri, advanced into Arkansas.

In the midst of these successes, Mr. Lincoln addressed a remarkable message to Congress (March 6, 1862), recommending "the adoption of a joint resolution, which should pledge the United States to co-operate with any State adopting gradual abolition of Slavery, by giving to it pecuniary aid." Every State initiating emancipation, he urged, would be lost for ever to the proposed Southern Confederacy. Gradual and not sudden emancipation was better for all. The current expenditure of the war would soon purchase, at a fair valuation, all the slaves in any named State. The proposal set up "no

FOR AIDING STATE EMANCIPATION.

71

claim of a right by the Federal authority to interfere with slavery within State limits." But, as he had said in December, the Union must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be employed, all which may obviously promise great efficiency towards ending the struggle. The pecuniary compensation tenIdered would be of more value to the States and private persons concerned, than would the institution and property in it, in the present aspect of affairs. He concluded with the solemn words: "In full view of my great responsibility to my God and my country, I earnestly beg the attention of Congress and the people to the subject."

It was only on the 10th of April that a joint resolution of Congress on the subject was finally approved by the President. But the feeling of the country against slavery was now rising on all sides, and this was but one of several measures directed against it. On March 13, an additional article of war expressly prohibited, under pain of dismissal, "all officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United